My wife Abby and I got our hair cut today. I gave her a lift into town at lunch time. When she was done, our haircut professional, Layce, cut my hair. On the way out of the house, Abby and I grabbed the mail, which included a small padded envelope. When we saw it was from China, we excitedly ripped it open. It was a face mask I ordered way back in March when the COVID-19 crisis began. It says, “Photography is Truth.”

Is photography truth? Well, no, of course not. Truth stands above it all; above opinion, above research, above even journalism.

My photography is often the truth, but not always. For example, there is a small red spot above my left eye which a dermatologist told me is a vein very close to the surface of the skin. It’s harmless, but somehow it feels like a flaw. I use to clone tool to remove it all the time.

I recently met our de facto office mascot, a chocolate skunk named DaeDae. A day or two later I photographed Abby’s pony tail on a fluffy pillow. She immediately quipped, “I’m a caramel skunk.”

Despite the roughness of 2020 and the bad news that feeds bad news, we still remain, and try to find our way.

The mirrorless camera experiments continue, and my intuitions about it have merit. For example, the SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4 lens is quite an amazing lens, especially since it got its start as a reporter’s camera at small town newspaper. A lot of those lenses were sold as newsroom pool cameras because they were so basic. The 50mm f/1.4 is at the top of any heap you’d be willing to pile; it is sharp, well-built, smooth-focusing, and delivers nothing short of spectacular bokeh. It is a sublime lens.